Dollar Days Linky

Click on the image above to visit A Teacher Without a Class

I am linking up again with A Teacher Without A Class for Teacher $ days.  I live in Canada so really NOTHING here is a dollar.  All our dollar stores are now $1.25 stores including Dollar Tree.  I love me some Dollar Tree though.  There are not a lot of them in the Toronto area yet, but I am lucky to live near one.  I love to roam around and get ideas for school.  I never leave without spending at least $20 on something for my classroom.  

Although I am no way close to being in "back to school" mode, I have not totally forsaken my teacher shopping habit.  In fact, in the two weeks since my mother passed away, one of the ways I have sought shelter from the chaos of the aftermath of the funeral, and the ongoing saga of being the executor of the estate, has been to indulge in a little "retail therapy".  I tell you I am going to need REAL therapy at the rate all of this legal, financial stuff is going.  But that is NOT for this blog post!

As I have posted about before on my blog, I like to create Back to School Survival Kits for my students.  I put them together during the week leading up to school starting up again, and then put them on the student desks the night before school starts.  I used to create them using paper bags, then I moved up to using pencil boxes, and then I went to using pencil pouches.  The students seem to like the pouches.  The other day when I was making my bi-weekly pilgrimage to Dollar Tree I spotted these

This is the closet picture I could find to the actual pouches I got from Dollar Tree.  I will NOT be putting scissors in the pouches for my students.  Last year I pre-ordered these from For Teachers Only.

I loved that they came with the pencils, the ruler, the two cap erasers and the sharpener.  They were actually LESS than a dollar a piece.  You can click on the image to see them online.  Well guess what?  This year, with all the chaos surrounding my mother's illness and palliative care, I was not able to order them in time and they are SOLD OUT!

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD A NEWLY UPDATED VERSION

Not to be deterred, I decided to make my own using items from Dollar Tree.  Now I do have to admit that it will cost more in the end, but I can tailor what goes into each pouch right?  I am going to put in one regular eraser, one pencil, one sharpener and the other things I list on here: 

While I was there, I got some more composition notebooks.  I started WHOLE CLASS JOURNALS last year and the kids loved it.  I really just wanted the students to be WRITING more often, and to be reading each others work.  The WHOLE CLASS JOURNAL idea worked really well with the group I had.  I am hoping it is as successful this year.

You can find lots of free WHOLE CLASS JOURNAL covers for your notebooks here Teachers Pay Teachers.

Gifts for Students and a FREEBIE!

I have to admit I am having a hard time making it to the end of the year.  As some of you know, my mother is very ill with Alzheimer's and advanced cancer.  She refuses to go into palliative care, and taking care of her and my brother who also has brain cancer has taken it's toll on me these past few months.  I hadn't thought of year end gifts for my students until it was too late to order my favourite pens from For Teachers Only. If you want to read about them see this post.

I happened to be in my favourite new dollar store, Dollar Tree and my hubby pointed out some really cute clipboards.  He knows I am obsessed with clipboards and tend to buy them and hoard them (I know, I know, but that's another problem to tackle another time!)  I didn't want them for me (gasp!) but I thought how much the girls in my class would probably enjoy them.  Luckily, there were enough to buy one for each girl in my class.  That left me in a quandry about what to get the boys, when the hubby again spotted something perfect. 

 I have a few of these large erasers in my classroom supplies and the kids LOVE THEM!  Again, there were enough to buy one for each boy student.

Clipboards, erasers, highlighters and sticky page flags all from Dollar Tree.  Gift bags and tags from party store.

Aren't these adorable?  I bought other colours too but I really liked the pink ones!

In order to add a few more things I bought some highlighters and some sticky post-it flags.  I cut the flags into individual pieces.  They were still on the backing so it was perfect.  There were enough to give each child one for a grand total of $3.75.

I know the boys in my class will think of me when then use these in junior high next year!

I had purchased these cute gift bags and tags last year at Party City.  I was glad that I had enough to last for this year too!

The finished gift! Perfect for a grade six graduate!

The cards I made and printed on the colour printer at school. 

To round the gifts out, I made a cute card with a graduate picture of either a boy or a girl on it.  The poem inside is the same, but after I printed and folded the cards, I took them home and wrote a personal message to each child.  

If you would like your own FREE copy of the cards I made, just click on the LINKS at the end of the post.

The final products all ready for next week.  I can't believe that next Thursday is the last day with my class.
We finish off the year on Friday with staff meetings and closing up our classrooms.  

Click HERE for GIRL NOTECARD.

Click HERE for BOY NOTECARD.

Don't forget to check out what is going on at
Freebie Friday on TBA.  

Another fun linky for all the bargain shoppers!